Annual Fulbright Distinguished Lecture in International Relations: Preventing the Next Pandemic

PAST EVENT | 19 November 2021 17:00 - 19 November 2021 18:30

Preventing the Next Pandemic: What have we learned about international health collaboration and what needs to change?

In this lecture, Dr Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, will examine the historical roots of international cooperation in health and the subsequent creation of the World Health Organisation in the aftermath of World War II. The WHO’s existence is rooted in outbreak management across borders. And yet in the hyperconnected world of 2020-21, global cooperation broke down illustrated by divergent & nationally-driven strategies on COVID-response, vaccine nationalism and hoarding by rich countries, and tense political fractures over the origins of COVID-19. Can we rectify these gaps moving forward? That is what Dr Sridhar will examine in this thought-provoking lecture that will also offer reflections on how – when the next pandemic comes – we can do better.

The lecture will be followed by a short drinks reception from 6.30-7pm.

In-person tickets for this event are sold out.

The lecture will be livestreamed for anyone unable to attend in person. Register for the event here.

Prof. Devi Sridhar

Devi Sridhar is a Professor at the University of Edinburgh Medical School and holds a Personal Chair in Global Public Health. She is the founding Director of the Global Health Governance Programme and holds a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award. She was previously Associate Professor in Global Health Politics and a Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford University and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. She was also a visiting Associate Professor at LMU-Munich and guest lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Public Health Foundation of India. Her books include ‘Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why?’ (OUP, 2017) and ‘the Battle against Hunger: Choice, Circumstance and the World Bank’ (OUP, 2007) and she has published in Nature, Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet and the British Medical Journal. She served on the board of Save the Children UK, on the World Economic Forum Council on the Health Industry and co-chaired the Harvard/LSHTM Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola. She holds a DPhil and MPhil from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and a B.S. from the University of Miami in the Honors Medical Program. Her work is concentrated in three areas: international health organizations, financing of global public health and developing better tools for priority-setting.

Annual Fulbright Distinguished Lecture in International Relations: Preventing the Next Pandemic

PAST EVENT | 19 November 2021 17:00 - 19 November 2021 18:30

Preventing the Next Pandemic: What have we learned about international health collaboration and what needs to change?

In this lecture, Dr Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, will examine the historical roots of international cooperation in health and the subsequent creation of the World Health Organisation in the aftermath of World War II. The WHO’s existence is rooted in outbreak management across borders. And yet in the hyperconnected world of 2020-21, global cooperation broke down illustrated by divergent & nationally-driven strategies on COVID-response, vaccine nationalism and hoarding by rich countries, and tense political fractures over the origins of COVID-19. Can we rectify these gaps moving forward? That is what Dr Sridhar will examine in this thought-provoking lecture that will also offer reflections on how – when the next pandemic comes – we can do better.

The lecture will be followed by a short drinks reception from 6.30-7pm.

In-person tickets for this event are sold out.

The lecture will be livestreamed for anyone unable to attend in person. Register for the event here.

Prof. Devi Sridhar

Devi Sridhar is a Professor at the University of Edinburgh Medical School and holds a Personal Chair in Global Public Health. She is the founding Director of the Global Health Governance Programme and holds a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award. She was previously Associate Professor in Global Health Politics and a Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford University and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. She was also a visiting Associate Professor at LMU-Munich and guest lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Public Health Foundation of India. Her books include ‘Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why?’ (OUP, 2017) and ‘the Battle against Hunger: Choice, Circumstance and the World Bank’ (OUP, 2007) and she has published in Nature, Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet and the British Medical Journal. She served on the board of Save the Children UK, on the World Economic Forum Council on the Health Industry and co-chaired the Harvard/LSHTM Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola. She holds a DPhil and MPhil from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and a B.S. from the University of Miami in the Honors Medical Program. Her work is concentrated in three areas: international health organizations, financing of global public health and developing better tools for priority-setting.